


Shileshole Bay

by Pi (Rhea)



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-23
Updated: 2011-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-26 11:11:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhea/pseuds/Pi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max takes the day off work, one summer at low tide. cliche bingo "long walk on the beach"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shileshole Bay

There's something about the beach at low tide. Max has lived by the water almost all her life. There's lakes to the left and the sound to the right. It's not hard to find ones way through the maze of the failing city and out to a place where you can dip your toes in the water. Even being part cat she still enjoys it. Today she's skipped off work. Not to save the world in Logan's great crusade, or to hang around with her friends from work. No, she's out here where the tide is low where she can walk miles on the land usually claimed by the ocean.

It's summer, the lowest tide of the year. Four feet below sea level. She knows because Logan found an almanac. For once, the sky is clear and blue. The sun beats down bright on her back and bare feet. She has her shoes tied together at the laces and slung over her shoulder. There are a few other people out on the beach. Homeless with their tents and small shacks a mother with two small children playing in the fresh water stream where it runs under an old foot bridge and out into the ocean.

The beach smells of the heat and the salt and the tar drying on the nearby road. Years of disuse after the Pulse have left the bathhouse a dingy structure, with plants creeping down off the hill all the way up to the sand. Max can't imagine why people stopped coming here. The city and it's sectors, quantined into small boxes of people panicked and people above panic in tall glass towers. That's the reason Max supposes. It seems unreal. Out among the exposed rocks and gummy-ring imprints of sea anemonies there's a dead sea skate. It's flat dinnerplate like shape gleams under the bright sun, beige, but brighter than the sand. Max thinks of sting rays and their poisonus barbs as she prods it with a finger. It's not poisonus and it's dead anyways. Just a ways down the beach a bald eagle lands. Max stays very still watching the bird.

She could probably catch it. When Max was younger, just escaped and still so new to the world, she would chase down birds. She could catch them between her bare hands. The thrill of the speed would flood her like the rapid beating of the heart held between her fingers. She always let them go. She doesn't creep closer this time, just watches the bird that used to symbolize her country. She doesn't know what it means now, but it's still beautiful. There are herons too, wading long legged in the water. She walks past them, the water closing over her ankles and the legs of her pants as she strides out to a sand bar. She's not surprised he's here. The one figure out as far as she is.

Logan stands on the sandbar looking out at the water, back to her, back to the herons. She almost gives herself away with a small noise as she almost steps on a sunstar. She jerks her foot back at the last minute when it brushes the soft skin of it's back. Stepping carefully to the side she walks up the last little ways to dry land. The sand bar isn't large but the waves meat around it in a frenzy, unsure which way to travel.

"Logan" she says in greeting.  
"Max." He answers. There's a smile in his voice and on his face.  
"I didn't know you'd be here."  
"I'm the one who looked it up."  
"Because I asked."  
"Well, I figured I'd see what you were so excited about." His voice is a little sharp but his smile is genuine. He's the same Logan, in and out of his glass tower. His feet are bare. He wriggles his toes in the sand and she follows suit. It's cold and wet between her toes. He isn't carrying any shoes.  
"Where are your shoes?" Max asks. Logan gestures over his shoulder, up the beach.  
"You'll loose them when the tide comes in."  
"I'll get them before that." He answers. He turns to face her. His hand hangs just a little ways away from his body. It could almost be accidental except for the way his fingers just brush hers.  
"Shall we?" He asks when she silently, turns her hand the barest distance so that their palms touch. She doesn't speak when she nods. His hand clasps more firmly around hers and they wade back to the shore, careful to keep the sunstar between them and untrod upon.


End file.
